Tony L
Administrator
I think that the similar looking G-8V appealed more to the metal heads. The G-5V is surprisingly versatile with some great single coil tones. Great for funk and jazz stuff. It's always been a bit of an allrounder for me.
I suspect all of them are really great guitars, its just the aesthetics that scream ‘80s hair-metal. I bet it would be a great studio guitar that could nail any genre as well as its stereotype.
FWIW I’ve never understood the logic of the ‘beak’ headstock as most Japanese designs are pure engineering based and make huge sense, yet that loses Leo Fender’s perfectly straight string pull across the nut. I know the locking nut negates it to some degree, but even so. I guess it initially came from Jackson/Charvel rather than Japan, which may explain it. The JEM gets it right, but that is an amazingly logical design throughout IMHO. Unquestionably a design classic and I secretly rather want one even though I really don’t like heavy metal. It is just so well thought out design-wise!